Christians

Via Age of Treason, some open letters from Asian Christians, who cunningly display their watered-down, strategic ethno-solidarity (“Asian” means nothing unless you’re outside Asia) using the language of Christianity.

If U.S. evangelical Protestant churches – now 81 percent white, according to 2012 Pew research – hope to become a more diverse representation of all the people of God, they must respond more positively to constructive criticism like that in the recent open letter.

And:

It is the conceit of religious white racism to presume that one’s evangelicalism transcends racial and cultural identities, making such “worldly” labels no longer important. The letter reminds church leaders that those identities still matter. White evangelical Christians must stop clinging to an alibi of color-blindness and recognize that vibrant growth within “their” churches has much to do with nonwhite members’ views of them.

And:

The evangelical church in America needs a reality check to honestly assess how it relates with its Asian American family members.

And the money shot:

We highly value the concept of family, and it deeply distresses us when our non-Asian brothers and sisters do not seem to recognize or embrace that we are called to be one united body. We are in your churches, your communities, your workplaces. Whenever you marginalize, ostracize, or demean us through carelessness and ignorance in print, video, or any other medium, you are doing more than just rufﬂing the feathers of a small group of online activists. You are damaging the very cause of Christ, by maintaining and increasing ﬁssures within the church.

. . . We would ask those who have inﬂuence in evangelical circles to consider the following speciﬁc action items:

– Examining hiring practices in Christian organizations, particularly in the areas of media and publishing, to see if there are systemic issues preventing Asian Americans from having a presence and a voice in the evangelical world

In other words: we are called to be one unified body, without division . . . so you’d better accept us, put us into positions of power, and acquiesce to our demands. In Christ’s name, amen.

A comment from a NY Times reader not afraid to say what’s really going on:

As a 4th generation Asian Christian, I have been told & lectured to many times over the years by whites in and out of church circles with a “Get with the program” attitude. These are admonishments to do things the “white” way. However, it is increasingly apparent that the program known as the USA is changing. Also, the center of gravity of the program known as evangelicalism is shifting away from whites towards Asians and Central & South Americans. It is high time the white Christians establishment realize, accept, and even embrace these changes which are happening under the Sovereign Will of God. In other words, it is the turn for white Christians to “Get with the new program!”

Just more evidence for my general thesis: Christianity died long ago and is now used only as a source of rhetorical energy for ethnic factions, victim groups, status whores, and the upper-class white leftists who enable all of them.

(I must admit that I cringe to see Asian Americans write like this. I have such high hopes for the world dominated by the Chinese, but things like this make me wonder. It would be much better if they just said, “Hey, whitey, you fucked up and gave up on your own civilization. Step aside and let us take over, because you’re clearly no longer competent to steer the globe into the future.” That kind of attitude, I can get behind.)

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18 responses

Sometimes I want to be a Christian, but Christianity is too far to my Left. I wonder how hard it would be to get a Judaism for white people going.

I really don’t like the idea of having America break up along tribal lines, but the more I see of what’s going on the more I think white racial consciousness is going to be the only way the European peoples have a future.

Oh, God, most Asian-American evangelical communities are completely insufferable. “Look at how Asian we are!” Puke. As if most Asian-Americans or evangelicals weren’t annoying enough, they’ve combined. I’ve got some anecdotes, but I don’t even know if they’d be worth sharing.

I’m a bit of a sinophile, so I don’t mind Asian communities being Asian-y. The worth of ethnic pride is equal to the worth of the ethnic culture, and I’d much rather see a bunch of Chinese or Japanese move into my neighborhood than a bunch of [insert low-IQ, low-achievement ethnicity here]. In L.A., some of my favorite places to go for dinner and babe-watching are Asian ethnic enclaves.

Now, the kinds of Asian-Americans pulling this garbage in the post are . . . as you say, insufferable. But I like to think they are giving up the coolness of their real culture for the utter bankruptcy of American leftism.

There are two main kinds of Asian-Americans that grow up here–ones that assimilate well and become yellow SWPLs, and the weird ones that can’t and only hang out with other Asian-Americans. (I’m pretty much the former.)

When I went off to college some years ago, I was encouraged to find an on-campus Christian fellowship. The church that I grew up in, an ethnically Chinese one, is pretty much evangelical. So, some of the people I knew from there also attended my school, and went to an Intervarsity chapter specifically tailored to Asian-Americans. I was dating one of those girls at the time, so I checked it out a couple of times.

[Caveat: By this time I had already developed a strong aversion towards Protestant Christianity, especially the low church strains, so I was already going into it with a negative attitude.]

It wasn’t wholly devoid of content, but it was pretty…faggy, for want of a better term. It’s like these people were actively trying to live up to modern stereotypes of East Asians, and not the cool stereotypes at that. Given that I’m totally repulsed by contemporary Asian popular culture, which in my opinion is just as fake and manufactured as what we have here in the West, there was no way I could stand it.

Yeah, I get it. It’s like a little community one can feel like home at, on a very secular or anti-religious campus. I can see it for immigrants, but for second-generation ones? Questionable. They’re torn up over the lack of authentic connections they have with their roots, so they remedy this by apeing what they think is ‘cool’ in Korea (lmao) or Japan, or whatever. It’s as if the child of Americans, growing up in some godforsaken place like India, obsessed over Lady Gaga, Lil’ Wayne, and Skrillex. Sweet, man.

Some of the older friends I had at the home church, probably about a decade or so older than me, sometimes visited the university campus around final exam time with care packages and stuff. I chatted with them while we were on the way to meet with others, and the subject came up regarding this specific Intervarsity chapter. They also thought that it was bizarre that some of these students went to a “racially-themed fellowship”. Like it was some sort of bubble that these kids intentionally didn’t break out of.

Maybe I myself am just less clannish than the others, I don’t know. But this suggests to me that the self-importance and smugness of Asians in America have grown in the last couple of decades, or so. I mean, would something as laughable as this (http://18millionrising.org/) have been fathomable in the early 2000s? Or, why is “white pride” the worst thing ever, but faggy shows of “[fake] Asian pride” cool? I don’t know.

Thanks, that’s fascinating. I especially like your comparison with an Anglo growing up in India who uses Lady Gaga as his sword in defense of American culture. What’s your ethnicity? I thought your handle didn’t reflect it.

The 18 million rising link you posted is depressing. Again, I can respect “fuck you, we’re better” rhetoric, but, my God, these people are the worst kind of SWPLs. I like to think that real Chinese would find them all very embarrassing.

Actually, I somewhat identify with what you’re talking about (though only through second-hand experience). As I’ve hinted at before, my mother is a first-generation Mexican. My grandfather picked strawberries and my grandmother always had a very thick Spanish accent. But both of my grandparents were total assimilationists. My older uncles speak Spanish, but my mother doesn’t speak a word, and to this day, she bristles at Mexican-Americans who identify more with the Mexican than with the American. If she spoke that way, she would probably echo your sentiment and call the whole Chicano movement “faggy.”

Now, on one hand, I feel somewhat disappointed that this entire Mexican and Iberian side of my heritage is eternally cut off from me. I can’t claim that heritage. But on the other hand . . . why would I want to? The cool things about that heritage are long gone.

To understand your world, you can try to imagine things with a reversal of identities and feel how absurd things becomes. Can you visualize, for example, some White Buddhists going to Asia and making the exact same demands? If you understand why those situations seem so ridiculously different, one boringly familiar and the other ludicrously implausible, then you understand a lot about this particular reality.

Yes, I’ve made a similar point out loud before to a colleague. He was saying that only black academics should be studying black literature, etc. I asked him how he would feel if I argued that only whites should be studying Beowulf.

I assume so because he made no meaningful response whatsoever. Another person in the room at the time–a flamboyantly gay African American–gave an honest response that I can respect: “Whatever, that’s fine, ain’t no blacks today wanna read that shit anyway.”

I can echo C.Y. Chen’s comments…there is a nauseating SWPL-emulating impulse in Asian-Americans, and in some Asian-American churches. Why is this the case?

The first thing to understand is that there is no Asian-American monolith. It split by ethnicity and generation. As you already know, the idea of Asian solidarity is laughable, as the primary identification is the ancestral ethno-state. I won’t belabor the point. For the purposes of this comment, “Asian” means Korean or Chinese.

The second axis is generation. The first-generation that actually immigrated are impressively immune to Cathedral nonsense. Most have experienced material hardship or outright war. The Korean shopkeepers of the LA riots, who formed self-defense militias and organized over Korean-language radio, were all first-generation. The second generation is where problems arise. First, the focus on education means that they are all shipped off to receive the best Cathedral indoctrination their parents can afford, from private kindergarten to Harvard. Secondly, the first-generation parents are culturally naïve, and simply can’t imagine the Bacchanalian depravity being force-fed to their children. When their Americanized progeny start complaining about their clothes or what someone said on Facebook, the parents blink uncomprehendingly, wondering why this healthy, well-fed child isn’t more grateful and studying harder. Thirdly, the language gap between the generations is substantial. The parents might have a partial command of functional, practical English, while the second-generation might only speak English. Deep, substantial conversation between the generations can prove very difficult. As a result, second generation Asian-American kids are exceptionally vulnerable to Cathedral propaganda, as they might be isolated from any other source of identity or support. The third- and fourth-generation, to the extent that they exist, are completely assimilated. Japanese-Americans are the most obvious example of this.

The Asian-American church is similarly split. Most first-generation Asian American churches are extremely conservative, even by conservative evangelical standards. Females are barred from becoming pastors, elders, or deacons. Most Chinese church traditions are derived from 19th century German Protestant missionaries. I’ve even been to one where the congregation is split by sex, and women must wear head-coverings to worship, in an almost Amish tradition. They are uncompromising on social issues. Abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex, adultery and divorce are all sins. The power of the church elders are vast, as they have ultimate authority over every aspect of the church, and can hire and fire the pastors at will. The church elders are supposed to be exemplary patriarchs, and I’ve even seen a church elder receive a formal censure for the behavior of his children. If you can’t control your family, how can you be expected to control the church? Korean churches tend to concentrate power in a single charismatic male pastor. Read into that what you will.

Again, the problem lies with the gradual replacement of the first-generation with the Cathedral-indoctrinated second-generation. First of all, all the ambitious, imaginative second-generation children have run off to different lands and different churches. It’s only the timid, obedient ones who stay. In Chinese churches, the kids are lead by English-speaking “youth pastors” who are themselves SWPL second-generation, and they teach liberal theology in English, while the church elders remain blissfully unaware, continuing to read their 1906 Chinese Union translation, with matching theology. In Korean churches, they tend to simply leave and find another Korean church lead by an English-speaking pastor with more modern views.

The sort of navel-gazing SWPLdom in the quoted article is most prevalent among second-generation northeast-Asians…and sure enough, this article is written by a W. Anne Joh. Female theology professor at a mainline Methodist seminary. (The seminary website says they welcome applicants from all “faith traditions.” Great.)

Is there any hope for Asian-American churches? Some. First, the neo-Calvinist counterattack is making inroads into the Asian-American church. They are reactionary, and have succeeded in reversing the tide of liberal Protestantism. Secondly, the overseas Asian churches is growing in media sophistication, and Asian-American churches are beginning to see a flow of materials from East to the West.

Great comment. Thanks. I think this generational gap can be seen in a lot of immigrant communities. My grandparents on my mother’s side are first-generation Mexicans, and they are both extremely conservative and extremely assimilationist. They made sure all of their kids grew up speaking English. Apparently the progressive mind virus only takes one generation to take hold, though.

Hi, I’m a Singaporean Chinese and also a Protestant Christian and I’ve been reading this blog with considerable interest.

I went on a 10 days stint in LA last year December and I was looking up on churches to attend during my time there. For some reason I was highly adverse to the monolithic Korean Presbyterian churches which, perhaps ironically, felt very alien to me. Eventually I settled for a mainline “white” church which is more welcoming and racially friendly than these pontificators about racial equality would ever be.

The fact is that Asians tend towards tribalism more than the Westerners and the West are the one with a large and magnanimous spirit to take the “outsiders” under its wing. The idea of Asians lecturing whites on being inclusive and more racially integrated is simply risable.

Anyway, as for the Chinese dominating the world, at the rate at which we are colonising Africa while dismissing any Western complaints about that by shouting “OPIUM WAR!”, we’re certainly on our way to “dominating the world”…

Thanks for the comment. Given the petty nature of most complaints against middle-class white American Christians (you only had a token Asian in that Sunday school curriculum video! put more of us in there!), I think it’s obvious that it’s a power play on the part of the people doing the complaining.

I have not problem with people being tribal, so long as they are honest about it. Eric Holder, for example, is perfectly blunt about seeing his job in the DoJ as being all about helping “his people.” What bothers me is when tribalism is veiled by social justice rhetoric in order to deflect the tribalism (e.g., Chinese yelling “Opium War!” whenever anyone points out their current ventures in Africa).